When soft tissue such as a ligament or a tendon becomes detached from a bone, surgery is usually required to reattach or reconstruct the tissue. Often, a tissue graft is attached to the bone to facilitate regrowth and permanent attachment. Various fixation devices, including sutures, screws, staples, wedges, and plugs have been used in the past to secure soft tissue to bone. For example, in typical interference screw fixation, the graft is fixed to the bone by driving the screw into a blind hole or a tunnel in the bone while trapping the end of the graft between the screw and the bone tunnel. In other methods, the graft is simply pinned against the bone using staples or sutures tied around the end of the graft to the bone.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,544,281, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein, discloses a surgical technique and associated instruments for securing soft tissue to bone which does not require the surgeon to tie suture knots to secure the tissue to the bone. According to the technique, a cannulated plug or screw is pre-loaded onto the distal end of a cannulated driver, and a suture or wire loop is passed through the cannula of the driver so that a looped end of the suture or wire is exposed at the distal end of the driver. Suture strands attached to a graft are fed through the loop at the end of the driver, and the driver is inserted into the bottom of the hole, with the screw or plug disposed just outside the hole. With tension applied to the suture or wire loop to keep the graft at the desired location relative to the bone hole, the screw or plug is then fully advanced into the hole using the driver to frictionally secure either the suture attached to the graft or the graft itself into the bone hole.
Although the above-described technique provides an improved method of graft fixation to bone, the flexible loop configuration at the end of the driver disadvantageously impedes sliding of the suture or graft which is fed through the suture loop. In addition, because the cannulated driver of U.S. Pat. No. 6,544,281 is provided with a flexible loop at its distal end, placement of the suture or graft at the bottom of the blind hole or socket and the cortical bone must be approximated, thus sometimes necessitating additional removal, tapping and insertion steps to ensure full insertion of the plug or screw into the blind hole or socket. This, in turn, may abrade the adjacent tissue and/or damage the bone or cartilage.
Accordingly, a need exists for an improved surgical technique and associated device for securing soft tissue to bone which allows the free sliding of the suture ends attached to a graft to ensure the positioning of the graft at an appropriate distance from the device. A fixation device and associated surgical technique that allow precise advancement and guiding of the plug or screw into the blind hole or socket are also needed.